


'somewhere between here and now'

by spheeris1



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: Introspective Mish-Mosh, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-23 11:58:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spheeris1/pseuds/spheeris1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Litchfield, Piper POV, multi-drabble, italics = past-tense and/or inner thoughts // Piper dreams of a woman she once knew and sighs softly into the smog of California.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

/ /

Settling down sounded good for a while – a sunny Saturday, a week in October, Christmas to three days after the start of another year – and maybe the bars were too thick, too strong, too final in front of her stunned face…

…but Piper just doesn’t know how to stay still anymore.

/ /

And she kicks in the bed – Larry’s legs peppered with bruises, bloodshot eyes slowly warmed by coffee steam. And she runs around the park like she’s in training – muscles tight until she lengthens them, stride by cold-air stride. And she taps her fingers restlessly against her thigh and she throws open windows even when it is freezing outside and she stamps down on this strangled sort-of feeling that likes to claw its way up into her throat – daring her to scream, daring her to shout, daring her to say dangerous and damning words with the speed of a hummingbird’s wing.

/ /

“I’m sorry… I’m so, so sorry but I can’t do this… I just can’t do this…”

Larry looks like he has been shot and it is sickening just how relieved Piper feels – seven months, twelve days, countless hours and endless minutes and… and…

_My god I’ve got to get out of here._

…and Piper watches as his fingers turn into a fist, hard upon his knee, and as his shocked stare sinks to the floor and she should feel like an asshole because her bags are already packed and she is already thousands of miles away from this townhouse; she is already long gone as Larry seethes and shakes and wishes for the earth to split apart and swallow him whole and she should feel so fucking horrible…

But all Piper feels is the sweet, sharp sting of freedom once that door shuts at her back.

/ /

It’s somewhere between the coastline and that exit that got her lost in New Mexico when the dreams start, each one fast to fade the very second she starts to see them… and mountainous clouds pinpoint the sky, breaking up the blue, and it isn’t like she feels particularly alone out here – Polly is always a phone-call away – but there is something about a dream that just won’t stop showing up but just won’t be caught either…

…and it’s somewhere between the wet sand sticking to her skin and the last words spoken before they stopped talking completely…

Piper dreams of a woman she once knew and sighs softly into the smog of California.

/ /

Her mother calls her aimless but insists on sending her money and Piper is okay with struggling – a bit – but she’ll take that check and cash it and live large as she strolls through the local produce and she’ll always be a sucker for artisanal anything… especially chocolates…

And so the sun beams down on her head and she thinks that this will be it; this will be where she’ll quiet her mind and feel secure again and the nerve-endings will spark less and sleep more.

This will be the end of prison’s hold upon her body (a tight embrace she cannot escape, hand-cuffs still around her wrists) and this will be the end of the sensation of incarceration (walls too close, lights too bright, too many voices that just won’t shut up) and she’ll never be the Piper she once was – _no, that girl has been wiped away like chalk_ – but maybe this is the end of pretending she is anything other than what she truly is.

Her mother calls her ridiculously self-centered but still ends each message with an ‘I love you.’

And Piper is okay with this.

Piper is okay with a lot of things these days.

/ /

She has sex for the first time in forever and it’s not at all like riding a bike after months of being off of one; she keeps looking for familiar landmarks – a wayward mole, a delicate patch of hidden skin – and instead is left grappling with the differences.

But she finds her footing in the way her gut clenches and then unwinds, over and over, and she’s had far better than this but the body is relatively simple to please when only one goal is in mind… and so she tips over willingly, encouraging the rolling of these hips and eyelids fluttering shut right before she orgasms…

…and maybe that’s where the bicycle analogy comes from because her feet have left the pedals behind and she is coasting, coasting, coasting…

But soon enough looks begin to linger – James and his gaze as he leans against the door, Hannah watching every move like it is perfect – and intimacy is just another cage, isn’t it?

And suddenly this city by the sea is too small.

/ /

_“Wouldn’t it be nice, though?”_  
 _“…Hmm?”_  
 _“To wake up and not know what the day is going to bring… wouldn’t that be nice?”_  
 _“That’s my line.”_  
 _“I know… I know it is…”_

Piper dreams of a woman she once knew, all tender lines and bittersweet swatches, and a cool rain coats her fingertips as they wave through the passing air and slick green-leaved trees line the highway and Piper is ready to admit that she is missing someone, that she is carrying longing upon her shoulders like Atlas hoists the earth.

_“…You’ve changed your tune.”_  
 _“Not really.”_  
 _“No?”_  
 _“I just started listening to what was already playing, that’s all."_

Piper is stretched out over the hood of her car as the fog tries to bury her alive and morning shifts to afternoon and she could just keep going, up through the forests of Washington and all the way to Canada… and then further still, burrowing deeper into the snow and the ice and away from everything, from everyone… Piper could do that, couldn’t she?

_“Will I get to hear you one day?”_  
 _“Do you still want to hear me?”_  
 _“What do you think?”_

But Piper dreams of a woman she once knew and about all the conversations they haven’t finished yet and she is as bound as ever, ropes thick with stifled sentiment, and this affection has been killing her for years upon years and so her wheels turn east once more and the peace of winter is left behind because you cannot be reborn if you don’t die first, right?

/ /

_“…I don’t know, Alex… but I’m sure you’ll tell me…”_

/ /

(tbc)


	2. two

/ /

“I don’t even know why I am doing this with you.”

And Piper has entertained this thought as well, doubt dancing over her closed lips every night since she returned to New York and since she went through all the proper channels in order to send a request sailing along those Litchfield waters – _“Let’s talk if you want to talk…”_ – and the old Smith-graduate side of Piper cringes at her lack of creativity, but somewhere between the last sunset spilling over those receding flatlands and the sound of her key fitting into a musty apartment lock, Piper gave up on pretense and practiced perfection and just tossed the ball into Alex Vause’s highly guarded hands.

“How are you?”  
“How’s Larry?”  
“I wouldn’t know.”

The ensuing silence is almost treasured – just a breath or two and then the distant murmuring of other prisoners, of other people reaching out to their respective pieces of the outside world – and it makes sense that Alex would imagine Piper getting back together with Larry because Piper did get back with Larry, at least for a while.

Alex is the consistent one, yes, but Piper is fairly predictable, too.

“Seriously, Piper… what the fuck is going on? Why did you want to talk to me?”

( _I want to tell you about this waterfall I found by accident in Oregon. I want to tell you about the flat tire I had to change off the side of Highway 1. I want to be able to hear your smile when you speak to me. I want to say I am sorry and have you know that I really mean it this time._

_I want you to know that I am not twenty-three anymore and that I am finally growing the fuck up._

_I want you in my life._ )

“Thought you might want to bend a friend’s ear.”  
“We were never friends, Piper.”

And these words are as true now as they were months ago, as they were years ago, because they never had conversations, they had flirtations; they didn’t discuss things like politics or the best place for Thai food or which celebrity-of-the-moment would be good in bed… no, that’s the kind of talking that friends do and Piper and Alex were never friends…

“I know. But maybe it’s time that we were, hmm?”

…and maybe that’s been part of the problem all along.

/ /

The thing about Alex’s voice is that it is incapable of subterfuge.

If the woman is annoyed, it bleeds through upon the initial syllable; if the woman is amused, the lilt is the first thing you hear – even beyond the words being said. If there is anger, then sentences seem to burn and if there is happiness, then sentences seem to fade away at the end – low tones drifting into a fragility that is rarely expressed and even harder to catch a glimpse of.

And so Piper figures that – on some level – Alex must be eager for contact of any kind, eager enough to side-step a whole lot of rage and disappointment, and so these first conversations stick to safe topics: the weather, the food, the day to day life that they both do their best to lead – prison and its tribal rules, the city and its social standards – and they avoid the serious things for the time being.

Serious things like why Piper isn’t with Larry and the fact that Alex didn’t approach Piper – not once, not even for a single second – after the incident with Pennsatucky and all the reasons, deep down in their goddamn bones, as to why they are talking to each other now...

Piper doesn’t start and Alex doesn’t ask and that’s just the way it is – for the time being.

/ /

“The heating has gone out in the suburbs and it fucking sucks. I think there were actually icicles on my eyelashes this morning.”  
“Hey, did you ever get another mattress?”  
“Yeah, I did, but I must have gotten used to not having one because now I sleep even worse than before. I don’t know, maybe I should kiss another bible-bashing meth-head and lose it again…”

Alex’s voice is warm with humor and Piper places her palm against one of the windows of her apartment – the one facing the street below, the one that overlooks all the taxis stuck in holiday traffic – and the coolness feels good against her skin, a sensory contrast to the heat that is building up inside of her body.

“That’s how girls get reputations, you know…”  
“Gotta pass the time somehow, right?”

And Piper wishes she could tell Alex how time doesn’t move any faster out here either, how minutes can crawl as you sit there – coffee growing cold as people bustle around, staring off into all the space you now have – and how the hours can drag during the night, even with all the darkness and even with all the silence, and just like Alex became accustom to the metal frame, Piper is afraid that she became comfortable with being locked away.

“…Piper? You still there?”

And Piper wonders if she is still around at all.

/ /

She skirts around the strollers and the idle walkers and then she outpaces the weekend warriors – iPod headphones lodged firmly into their yuppie ears – and then it is just her (inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale) and the bright January sun cutting through the bare branches and the sound of her own feet pounding against the pavement.

But no, it’s not just that, is it?

_“It was boring. Just me and some wine and another midnight come and gone.”_  
 _“No New Year’s Eve make-out session to share with the class? Now I’m bored.”_

Her heart beats harder and harder and the blood is pushed through her veins with insistence and she can feel her lungs expanding – wider, deeper – and the air just burns and burns and burns and it hurts just a bit, but it feels good, too. It feels like being alive, like she exists in this world – with its noon and its evening, with its television shows and it Sunday crossword puzzles – and Piper needs to learn how to live in this world again.

But no, it’s not just that, is it?

_“What about you? How was your New Year’s?”_  
 _“Oh yeah, it was a real wild time… Boo managed to score some liquid entertainment, but then a fight kicked off in the kitchen and that killed the party atmosphere pretty damn quick.”_  
 _“Anyone hurt?”_  
 _“Mother Diaz has a broken nose. Her daughter must have a wicked right hook.”_  
 _“…Well, anger can make all punches dangerous…”_

And she is suddenly blinded by the sunlight, the path in front of her lost in a wave of white, and her feet stumble and the ground comes rushing up to meet her body – knees knocking into each other, knuckles skidding across asphalt – and Piper breathes heavily into the cracks and the dirt and she’s felt more pain than this, so much more than this, but now that burning has found her eyes and she closes them tightly, so very tightly, against tears that shouldn’t be falling, against a sorrow that should be packed away by now.

But no, it’s not just that, is it?

…No, it’s not just that at all.

/ /

Piper dreams about a woman she once knew and sometimes that woman is just herself – Piper at ten, Piper at college, Piper as she walks away from Alex, Piper as she hears Larry weep, Piper as she is nothing more than red-hot fury… running until the city shuts down, fists flying at Pennsatucky’s unprepared face… and sometimes Piper dreams about a woman she never knew at all.

/ /

(tbc)


	3. three

/ /

_The fear and the adrenaline mixed together and created quite the heady cocktail within Piper’s body._

_And it was like she was watching herself from a distance – her arm cocked back and then it is released, repeatedly; the impact of bone against bone and the thick cloud of heated air that left her lips in enraged gasps, covering the two of them in an icy mist – and Piper didn’t know how to stop._

_Because it wasn’t just Pennsatucky that she was pummeling the shit out of._

_It was Larry and it was Alex, it was Healy and it was Luschek, it was everything about prison and it was everything outside of prison, too._

_It was Piper on that patch of snow, unconscious and bleeding and beaten…_

_…and that little Christmas angel just got in the way._

/ /

Three weeks go by before she hears from Alex again and Piper finds her fingers twisting against one another as she picks up the phone, as she accepts this call, as she paces from the edge of the couch to the table by the door and then back again until a hoarse voice tumbles into her ears.

“Hey.”  
“Hey, hello… uh, are you okay? You sound terrible.”  
“Thanks. Just what every girl wants to hear.”  
“What happened?”  
“Nothing.”  
“Alex—“  
“Leave it, Piper.”

Piper doesn’t notice it at first - the way her knuckles bend and grow stark white with tightness, the way her wrists become rigid with a certain kind of intention – but a determined vine of wild, reckless emotion has taken root within her marrow and it thrives without Piper’s acknowledgment or help and oh how it grows and grows…

And she’s all fists and fire now; she’s all sinew and sensation, all snap and bite and growl and Piper doesn’t notice it at first – how ready she is for a fight – but the more she loses control, the more she wants to attack, and maybe she should have stayed on the road longer, stayed in those western woods or remained close to those wave-soaked shores.

Maybe Piper should have kept trying to outrun herself instead of finding herself again.

“I’m not going to leave it.”

Alex’s sigh is fraught with irritation and there is a cold, cutting reply waiting to fall from that tongue – and Piper looks forward to it so much more than is right, than is normal...

“Why? Because we are such good friends? Because you care about my well-being now that… what? Now that you are lonely? Now that Larry is gone again?”

…and oh how it grows and grows, flooding Piper’s bloodstream like a drug – potent and heavy with an unimaginable tension – and this is what they are not talking about and this is why Alex is still wounded and this is why Piper runs and runs and dreams and dreams…

“Fuck you, Alex.”

There is a sharp, short laugh and Piper can almost see Alex’s jaw tighten, teeth locked in bitterness, and that gaze will be blank – in an effort to stay strong, to remain unmoved – but it is all for naught because Piper can see everything about Alex, even when she doesn’t want to, even when she wishes for nothing more than blindness...

The dial-tone is sudden and swift and Piper is left trembling, somewhere between here and now, with a want that feels like acid in her veins.

…and maybe that’s been part of the problem all along.

/ /

_They hadn’t talked and they hadn’t written to one another – he had said good-bye, a crackling voice over the phone line, and she had fallen down to the ground, a shaking and tearful mess of a girl – but there he is, hovering at the edge of her mother and father and she doesn’t know whether to look at him with longing or to just look straight through him._

_But there he is, months and months later, Larry Bloom with eyes the color of sadness and lips that tilt upward in an attempt at forgiveness; there he is, staring at her as she is enveloped by her mother’s thin-armed embrace and as she is bustled away from those entrance gates, away from Morello and her van full of newbies, away from lamps that were never fixed and food that was never good, away from Alex Vause…_

_…and there he is, Larry Bloom, giving her another chance and she wants to tell him, right then and there, what a bad, bad idea that is, what a bad, bad idea it is for anyone to love her this much…_

_But there he is, running his fingers over the scar she now wears, and every soft swipe is a reminder of all that Piper wants to forget, all that Piper wants to pack away, all that Piper wants to believe is temporary – because it is all temporary, right? – and there he is, taking her back like she is still brand new, and Piper wants to be brand new again._

/ /

She dances until her body hurts and she drinks until her head spins and she kisses the lips of strangers until those kisses begin to bruise and then she turns tail and runs – hot cheek pressed onto the taxi window as the city lights stream by – and this isn’t the best example of loving oneself, but she didn’t bring anyone home with her and when she tumbles into her bed…

…Well, she is glad to be alone and that’s something, isn’t it?

But the ache hasn’t gone away – it pools at the center of her body; it tastes like anger and it feels like desire and Piper wonders if she has lost the ability to tell the difference between the two. Piper wonders if prison stripped away more than a sense of self from her mind… Piper wonders if what was lost behind those bars was more than just months of her life.

And then Piper wonders about Alex.

And that’s like adding fuel to the fire and if it wasn’t past midnight, Piper would go running, and if she weren’t so stupidly drunk, she’d read until sleep pulled her eyelids down – but no, it won’t be like that tonight… and it just feels so right – but so, so wrong - to be touching herself like this… just like this, stripped down to nothing but her skin and with her hips roughly canting to the rhythm of a single name repeating inside of her brain, to the thrust of her fingers as they seek and destroy… and it just… it just feels so…

…Well, it feels horribly perfect and that’s everything, isn’t it?

/ /

(tbc)


End file.
